The Western Wind Mass by John Taverner (ca 1490-1545) is one of the early glories of English music. Andrew Parrott takes the secular tune around which the mass is woven as an excuse to interlace the sections of the work with well-chosen instrumental and vocal music from the court of that music-obsessed monarch and amateur composer, Henry VIII, including, of course, pieces by Henry himself.

Parrott dissents from current assumptions about the high pitch used in Tudor times, and while his always well-pointed performance still has bracing soprano lines, it's less austere in effect than some other, highly praised accounts. avie-records.com